Many of you missed NixFAQ news roundups for some time now. And I’m sorry that I have published no news articles lately. But I’m really excited to announce that from now, I will continue writing news roundups. And with a new format where I will discuss my personal thoughts in casual language. So if you want a friendly discussion over this, you are very welcome in the comment section.
Big newses
We will discuss news that is important and affects the community vastly. We have little for this, but some news is big. I will discuss it in detail now.
CentOS hangs itself – RIP
This is quite big news, and a sad one. It made lots of people angry for obvious reasons. So on the 8th of December, CentOS blog published this:
“The future of the CentOS Project is CentOS Stream, and over the next year we’ll be shifting focus from CentOS Linux, the rebuild of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), to CentOS Stream, which tracks just ahead of a current RHEL release. CentOS Linux 8, as a rebuild of RHEL 8, will end at the end of 2021. CentOS Stream continues after that date, serving as the upstream (development) branch of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.”
Marking a sudden planned death of a stable Linux distro. So basically they will change the stable base to RHEL unstable. This will completely change what CentOS is all about. Although many users are mad, Ars Technica wrote:
“While CentOS Stream is something of a rolling release, it’s a limited one—it rolls from one minor version to the next, but its major version is stable and tracks Fedora’s. A CentOS Stream 8 user won’t be forced to dog food RHEL 9 code any earlier than a CentOS Linux 8 user would have.”
Rocky Linux as an alternative
Although CentOS lost its core, a new Linux distro that is fully 100% bug-for-bug compatible with CentOS. So users can move to it, losing no CentOS stability and base features. Everyone is welcoming Rocky Linux as a legit alternative.
New shiny things from the Linux world
Let’s see what’s new and shiny in recent days. New distro, new application or anything new. We have some big and interesting things this month, though. Including the release of Cyberpunk for Stadia. Let me discuss why it matters.
Cyberpunk 2077 on Stadia
Cyberpunk 2077 is on Stadia, and you know what it means. It means that it’s ready for Linux with no extra effort from the developers. No porting and nothing. Because Stadia runs on Linux. There are Linux servers behind Stadia, and if Cyberpunk can run on Stadia, then it can also run on Desktop Linux. But it’s up-to developers if they want to publish it for Linux.
Whether CD PROJEKT RED will publish it, it’s possible to play Cyberpunk thanks to Proton. Even if you bought it from GOG, you can run it easily, although you need to do a little tweaking. Nothing necessary if you run from Steam. Proton’s latest build lets you play Cyberpunk if you have AMD cards. Although there is no major bug in the latest Proton build, there sure are some good amounts of bugs in the game itself.
People are already playing Cyberpunk on Linux
While the Linux world is trying to make a straight way to play Cyberpunk, some enthusiasts have succeeded in playing it on Linux already. A user on YouTube uploaded gameplay of Cyberpunk on Arch Linux with the latest proton. Watch it here.
Twake – A modern open source collaboration platform
Another shiny product. Twake looks superb on both paper and visually. It contains tools and features for all collaboration needs.
“With Twake’s all-in-one solution, keep all of your data in one centralized location, manage your projects through a single interface, and enjoy seamless integration of your favorite collaborative tools.
Get started with messaging, video conferences, file sharing, collaborative calendars, task management and more with just one click.”
This has almost every tool you need in one platform for collaboration. Editing documents, calling and chatting, planner, organizer, sharing and search features. Twake has clients for almost every platform, including web. Check out Twake here. Maybe a review soon in NixFAQ?
Linux kernel 5.10 released by Torvalds
Love it or love it, Linux kernel 5.10 is here just before the holiday. And it’s not that big. This version of Linux kernel contains mostly driver related improvements and additions. Linux 5.10 includes:
- Improved support for AMD Zen3 processors
- Added improvements for RDNA2 AMD graphics drivers
- EXT4 and BTRFS improvements for write-speed and performance
- Added hardware support for Librem5 phone
- Added support for Creative Sound Blaster AE-7, Matias Wireless keyboard, Lenovo X1 multi-touch
- More support for USB4 specs
- Added driver for Nintendo Switch joy con and controller with working with bluetooth and wired connection
- Faster hibernate and resume feature
- More support for Apple Silicon and ARM
New distribution
Let’s welcome new Linux distributions and distribution updates that happened this month according to DistroWatch. Today I welcome:
Garuda Linux
Garuda Linux is a rolling distribution based on the Arch Linux operating system. Unlike Arch Linux, Garuda Linux comes with a graphical installer (Calamares) for easy installation, and other advanced graphical tools for managing your system. Garuda is a performance-oriented distro with many performance enhancing tweaks. Some many tweaks include using zram, a performance CPU governor, along with custom memory management software. Garuda Linux has striven to provide system stability by including the Timeshift backup utility.
Latest version: 201205
Last updated: 2020-12-07
Desktop variants: KDE (flagship), Cinnamon, Gnome. LXQT, XFCE, UKUI, Deepin, BSPWM, i3 and Wayfire.
Download https://garudalinux.org/downloads.html
Raspberry Pi OS 2020-12-02
Simon Long has announced the availability of a new version of Raspberry Pi OS, a Debian-based distribution for Raspberry Pi computers. The latest version includes an updated Chromium web browser, a graphical front-end for configuring printers, and the PulseAudio audio control software. “We’ve updated the Chromium browser to version 84. This has taken us a bit longer than we would have liked, but it’s always quite a lot of work to get our video hardware acceleration integrated with new releases of the browser. That’s done now, so see good-quality video playback on sites like YouTube. We’ve also, given events this year, done a lot of testing and tweaking on video conferencing clients such as Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom, and they should all now work smoothly on your Raspberry Pi’s Chromium. From this release onwards, we are switching Raspberry Pi OS to use the PulseAudio sound server.”
Check out more releases in DistroWatch.
Hot Linux games
Here are the games that have most active players on Linux
CS-GO
Counter Strike Go still has the most active player topping Cyberpunk 2077, Dota and PUBG. I’m still amazed how active it is and currently it is the most played game on Steam. It’s been almost 8 years since it’s been on Steam.
“Counter-Strike took the gaming industry by surprise when the unlikely MOD became the most played online PC action game in the world almost immediately after its release in August 1999,” said Doug Lombardi at Valve. “For the past 12 years, it has continued to be one of the most-played games in the world, headline competitive gaming tournaments and selling over 25 million units worldwide across the franchise. CS: GO promises to expand on CS’ award-winning gameplay and deliver it to gamers on the PC as well as the next gen consoles and the Mac.”
So here you go
I will continue writing more frequently and bring you more news with personal commentary. I hope you liked it, do continue the discussion in the comment. Thanks for reading.
